I wonder, is anyone as surprised as I am to find themselves an adult? I think in someways I’ve got it down: I pay my bills on time, I work a full-time job, I have learned how to cook and can keep myself alive, I have decorated apartments and not with posters or string lights or cheap sheets for my bed, and I appreciate NPR news radio in a way my six year-old self would have never thought possible (ok my 18 year old self too). But a lot of the time it’s a bit of a shock to find out that I am an adult and what’s more, people look at me like I am an adult.
In all the ways I have a half grasp on adulthood I also feel like I’m nothing but a kid. Let me count the ways: I’m supposed to pay my dad for my car insurance but he forgets and I don’t remind him (also hello 28 year-old, get the title from your dad and get Illinois plates on your car). I have laughable savings, and while I have an IRA and two mutual funds (also with laughable amounts) I could only tell you abstractly at best what the hell those things even are. I put off doctors and dentist appointments like I’m a scared little baby – and even when I read articles about how important it is for me to consider some radical choices for a gene marker I have? I prefer to put those appointments off too. Remember how I said I can cook and survive? I don’t cook for myself nearly as much as I should – thus a reason for my pathetic bank accounts. I think mainly what consistently makes it a shock to me that I am an adult is the struggle it is to keep close the people you love. When I was a kid it was so easy, they were all around me. It’s the adultness (yes that is not a word, you are correct) of living across states from my siblings and across the country from best friends and apart from the people who I feel know me best that shouts *YOU’RE AN ADULT!” The most.
Apparently this in between stage, though it seems to last a lot longer for this generation, will be a time we look back on fondly. I’ve never been a girl to like the unknowns, so I’m looking forward to feeling like I’ve got this adult thing under better control soon. Maybe I’ll start by making a couple appointments and writing my dad a check.
2 replies on “a work in progress”
I feel the same way often Julia, you are definitely not alone. Also I wouldn’t stress about the savings to much. I’ve done a bunch of research and have my 30 year savings plan outlined, its really pretty simple. I’ll share it with you sometime if you ask. But hightlights = just doing a roth IRA and putting the max in every year ( 5,500) and self investing the funds with prosper.com (a peer to peer lending site). If you followed this for 30 years you would have roughly 1.8 million dollars set aside for “retirement”. But I put that word in quotes because I think the traditional notion of retirement is flawed. I’m reading a book right now that promotes “mini” retirements throughout your life instead of deferring “retirement bliss” to the distant future and I like the concept a lot. Also I feel like when we are “old” the norm will not be retiring with a pension but instead doing fulfilling work that we are capable of doing as long as we care too.
In follow up to this post, I have to say for once I followed through on some of this “being an adult” business. Aside from Sam’s great suggestion of putting the max into a Roth IRA (which I can’t afford/my new job doesn’t offer IRA’s and I have yet to add anything to the existing IRA I have from my last job) I did make a couple of necessary doctor’s appointments (and already attended one) and I will be having an MRI and meeting with a few other doctors to plan for the next 8 months, before the end of the year. I also cooked more in the past two weeks than I have in a long while, which resulted in me saving money by not eating lunches or (many) dinners out! I also went home and spent time with the tiniest members of my family, my nieces, and chatted on the phone/Facetime with my siblings in New York and Paris. I even wrote a card to revive the snail-mail pen-pals I have going with my cousin Leah in Seattle. So, one day at a time and not letting my crippling fear of the tiny amount of money to my name get me down. And I think I’ll survive this adulthood thing.